Xanthe

Thank you! I find the Catlin and Sally scenes hard to watch because they are very emotionally unsatisfying -- Sally is so cold and Catlin is nowhere near sorry enough. And seeing Kevin complain that he loves Catlin, knowing that within the year Sally will be dead and even though she had reconciled with and married Catlin Liz would take Kevin out of town so that Catlin didn't have to give him a second thought when getting back together with Brittany less than a year after Sally's death, absolutely drives me crazy. Obviously they decided there was no story left there since the Matthews and Ewings were outside the Cory/Love/McKinnon framework dePriest wanted to establish in 1986, but it didn't have to be that way. Was Raven on The Edge of Night the same kind of blatant schemer that Brittany had become by this time? Carl pops up again one last time in Arizona and fights with Chris before appearing to possibly drown or something. Marley shooting him seems to be all in a day's work for Carl. Seeing Mac talk about how evil Carl is here is very uncomfortable when you think about his marrying Rachel eventually.

Would the audience at the time have known it was a member of the Village People? I tried to figure out what it was about by looking at the synopses on the AWHP, and it mentions that Lurlene asked if she could meet Randy Jones, but there doesn't appear to be any resolution and the rest of the story seems to be some kind of action adventure involving Ruby.

I didn't have a clear picture in my mind of Lurlene so I searched for a video and this was the first clip that came up.

If she had dug deep into the characterization of the people in those families perhaps she could have kept it going for longer. She didn't offer a description for the Loves other than rich and contrasting them with the Corys by saying they were rich but with a social conscience seems weak. It would be one thing if the comments had been superficial and the writing deeper but ultimately I don't think it was simply casting that caused problems, it was an overall shallowness. David Forsyth was a good actor but John didn't develop as a character until the writing post-dePriest grounded his issues in Vietnam rather than his lust for Donna. Anne Heche's Victoria also became more interesting after Reginald was out of the picture and she had a bad girl purpose.

I appreciate the links at the top of the Cancelled Soaps forum but if it is possible I think it would be even better if they linked to the first unread post instead of the top of the thread.

That's part of the reason I thought it was intended to hint at homosexuality until it was almost sanitized. It looks like Virginia Browne was the HW who created Sandy. Would she have been tempted to write a gay character?

I'm not sure whether Sandy detracted from Jamie in any meaningful way. Once Dennis left it made sense for there to be another young man in the Cory family that Jamie could be friends or rivals with. It's true that Sandy also married Jamie's first couple of wives but Jamie had moved on by the time Sandy got involved with Blaine, hadn't he? Jamie and Sandy could have had mild conflict or mutual support over Cory family or business or love triangle if Sandy had not been written out. Was there ever a plan to write Sandy as gay or am I reading too much into his escort past?

Thank you! (And thanks @DRW50 for the notification). Iris explaining to Blaine what lawyers are for was killing. I liked Rachel very much here. A bit shocked that Frank doesn't seem to rate a mention as even a flirtation on Rachel's AWHP character page. His minor character entry does note that he dated Rachel.

Thanks. It took me a bit to figure out that Blair Baker was the woman being pushed. I know this was when they were going for a nightime ER and/or procedural feel (and ads are not necessarily representative of the actual show) but it is still weird to have the impression that Gabe is the main character. Rachel doesn't even speak!

Author Joanna Trollope has died. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/12/joanna-trollope-bestselling-novels-ordinary-life-a-village-affair-dies-aged-82

Madeleine Sophie Wickham who wrote the Shopaholic books as Sophie Kinsella has died at age 55. https://bbc.com/news/articles/ce91d2m1gg7o

Before I watched this I assumed that it was going to somehow be about something sexy and was wondering at what stage in their relationship it would be set. Brittany certainly threw herself at Peter very determinedly when she knew she was pregnant by Catlin and had reconciled herself to the idea that Catlin was not going to leave Sally any time soon. And Peter didn't turn against her until after the baby was born and Reginald had come back from the dead, so I guess they had six months or so where at least for promotional purposes they could have been advertised as a sexy coupling. However it made a lot more sense when I saw it and it was about Brittany finally shooting Peter. Thanks @Maxim for the 1983 episode. I particularly liked the little scene between Mark and Cass. I remember feeling at the time that AW was a little bit dull in that period until the reveal of who had killed Alma.

If it's not limited to people who did both at the same time, Gary Tomlin acted on AW before he was a writer and later director. And Lewis Arlt who appeared first as David Thatcher and later as Ken Jordan also wrote and directed.

Grant came first and Ryan followed, then Spencer, and eventually Kelsey. I really wanted to like Kelsey but Kaitlin Hopkins in the role rubbed me the wrong way. It took some time for it to turn out that Ryan was Carl's biological son. If they had used Perry as Vicky's True Love maybe things would have swung the other way and Perry would have found out that he was Spencer's biological son, thus backing into the rivalry with Grant and ensuing triangle.

I do think that if he had lived something would have had to shake up Nancy and Perry's relationship. I suppose Jake and Vicky could have accomplished that some way or another. This is where I start to play the game is there anything Ryan did that Perry could not have done? I suppose that Perry would have been too much of a known quantity to have swept Vicky off her feet the way Ryan did -- although depending on the writing that could be a minor issue and something could have happened so that they saw each other in a new light, etc etc.